Suspected militants in Obon Ebot village in Etim Ekpo local government area of Akwa Ibom State Sunday allegedly captured and beheaded a soldier during a bloody shoot-out between them and a combined team of soldiers, Department of State Service (DSS), the police and other para-military officers.
Straightnews gathered that JTF officers stormed the village to arrest a wanted militants’ leader popularly called ‘Aboy Ikpor’ and his gang, who led the Ikot Ekpene prison break, in which no fewer than 40 inmates escaped in December 2017.
It is reliably learnt that during the raid of their hideout by the security operatives, the “militants ambushed the soldier in a military fatigue, captured and killed him.
“They chopped off his head and later dumped his headless body at Obo Inyang market,” Akpan Udotim, a local from Ikot Una village in Ukanafun told reporters.
In addition, suspected cultists were said to have killed three civilians including a woman in Udianga Enem, Ikot Obioma and Uruk Ata 11 all in Etim Ekpo local government area.
In a related development, the militants, said to be loyal to their deceased leader, Akaniyene Jumbo, alias ‘Iso Akpafid’, who was ambushed and killed by the military last month, also kidnapped one Ekikere Hanson Ukpekpe, a teacher at St. Joseph’s Primary School, Iwukem.
The teacher, who hails from Ikot Obioma village, was seized by the ‘Red boys’ in his farm, after returning from his base in Ukanafun, to till the soil as the farming season begins.
It was learnt his abductors are said to be demanding for N1million and, according to a family source, “such huge cash won’t be easy for a family where the man and the wife are primary school teachers”.
“Because of frequent crises in the community, the man had to evacuate his family to safer place in Ukanafun, but only return temporarily to farm and was unlucky to be caught in his farmland by the hoodlums,” the source added.
When our reporter contacted via telephone, the Assistant Director in-charge of Public Relations at the 2 Brigade, Nigerian Army, Major Shuaib Umar only replied through text; “I am in a meeting.”
But the Commander of the JTF team in-charge of Etim Ekpo, Ukanafun, Oruk Anam, Ika and Ikot Abasi local government areas, who led the operation, confirmed the incident but denied the dead person was a soldier.
According to him, “the dead person was just our informant and we gave him military camouflage to wear so that he could lead us to the camp.”
“They were three and we gave them military uniforms to wear so as to lead us to the location of their camp to capture some of the suspects, who escaped from Ikot Ekpene prison, but when he heard gunshots, out of fear he attempted to escape and I think bullets caught him,” he revealed.
